Just to Say Goodbye
by maybiline180
Summary: A collection of short stories about Rose Tyler and the many different forms of the immortal Doctor.
1. Rose

His mind was wandering, but that wasn't anything new. He was always travelling around space and time, saving civilizations that weren't supposed to be saved, showing people the worlds that surround them.

But he always lost. No matter what he did, he would always lose. Lose people. Lose soul mates. Lose his reason to live. And the most important thing, the one person he allowed himself to fall carelessly in love with, was the one person that he regretted losing the most.

Rose Tyler and the Doctor were in love, there's no arguing that. Rose saved him from death, whether it was his or somebody else's, and for that he would forever be grateful. He wouldn't have been standing there at this moment, staring out at the Norwegian ocean, where he had said goodbye and left her behind with the man that was supposed to be him.

 _I hope she's happy,_ he thought to himself, his hands in his pockets. _That's all that really matters._

It had been thirteen hundred years, or four and a half billion - depending on how you want to look at it - since he had seen her last. At this point, she was just a distant, ever fading memory that he was desperately trying to hold on to. But that was the curse of immortality, and in contrast to the long years he had lived, the time he got to spend with the ones he cared for was fleeting.

Two regenerations had further corrupted his memory of her. He had once regenerated out of his love for Rose, to save her life, and that version of him spent his entirety loving her, then yearning for her. People assume that because he's a different man now, and because he's so much older, that he doesn't love her anymore.

But that's not true. He will always love her. To the Doctor, it's like losing a spouse to an illness, then eventually moving on enough to remarry, but you will always love the one you lost.

The Doctor closed his eyes and took a deep breath. He knew that this was probably a bad idea, considering the fact that the last time he did something like this, he had burned up an entire sun, but he just couldn't bear it anymore: he _needed_ to see her one last time. To make sure that she's happy, and that his meta-crisis duplicate was treating her well, and that Jackie and Pete were still okay, and to meet Rose's little brother, and...

He pressed a button on the Tardis center console, pulled a lever, and then the creaky, wheezing sound rang out across Bad Wolf Bay. Then, he was in front of Rose Tyler's house, and his hearts started to race as the front door creaked open, and in only an instant she was sprinting towards him, and his breath caught in his throat while his stomach twisted into wonderful knots and his skin tingled at the very thought of holding her in his arms again.

And then, with one whoosh of the Tardis door, she threw herself at him, burying her head in his neck to muffle her sobs. The Doctor hugged her tightly, gripping at her back, bunching her shirt up in his hands.

"Rose," he barely managed to breathe. He had to tell her now, before he had to go to spare an entire galaxy from burning, so that he could finally feel complete, so that his unfinished business would be finished, and so that maybe he could move on. "I-I love you."

Now her breath caught in her throat, because she had dreamed of this moment for so long, and she thought for a second before whispering, "Quite right, too," and they both just stood there, holding each other until their arms started to ache and their hearts stopped racing.

And then, after thirteen hundred years, he could finally breathe.


	2. Burning Up a Sun

"I'm burning up a sun just to say goodbye," he barely managed to get out. He was trying not to cry in front of the woman he loved, but he knew very well that this was the last time he was ever going to see her again. He wanted to tear the universe apart so he could take her in his arms and they could run away together in the Tardis. But that would be selfish, and selfishness was exactly what landed Rose in this parallel universe without any hope of returning home.

She was crying now, which broke both of the Doctor's already fragile hearts. For a while, they were together, and that was the best while the Doctor had _had_ in a while. A very long time, actually, and for a brief moment he actually allowed himself to believe that he could hold on to Rose _and_ his old life. But the truth was that Rose was just as fragile as all the others: her lifespan was like that of an ant's in the Doctor's eyes, and death was inevitable, which meant that any hope of loving somebody was completely futile, because he knew all humans were fleeting.

"You've still got Mister Mickey, then?"

"There's five of us now. Mum, Dad, Mickey, and the baby."

His hearts stopped mid-beat. So many things were going through his mind now, every single one of them terrifying. "You're not...?" He couldn't even finish the sentence, because he knew the answer.

Rose's breath caught in her throat as she said, "Yeah. I am. I don't-" She started to cry then, hugging her waist as she tried not to sob.

The Doctor didn't know what to do. He was stuck in a completely separate universe with no safe way to get to the woman he loved- and his child. All he wanted to do was reach through the veil and wrap her into him, tell her it would be okay because he was there and wasn't going anywhere. But all he could do was stand there, helpless, watching her cry.

She looked sick, he noticed now- pale and clammy, like she hadn't eaten or slept in days. She hadn't, but wasn't going to let him know how she was suffering.

Rose took a squeaky breath, trying to get herself together. "I-I don't know what to do, Doctor. I'm scared. I'm _terrified._ I don't want to do this alone, and the baby will be half Time Lord and I don't know how to-"

The Doctor blinked away tears, telling himself he had to be strong for all three of them.

"Tell me what to do. I don't know what to do."

He clenched his jaw, grinding his teeth slightly, thinking.

"Doctor?" Now a lot of terrifying things were going through _her_ mind. Was this going to scare him away? Did he even _want_ to find a way to get through the wall of the universes? Did he love her enough to stay? _Why wasn't he saying anything?_

"I-if you don't want to stay, I understand-"

The sound of her voice ripped him away from his thoughts. "How could you think that? I just need to find a way to break through the wall, and then..."

"And then what? Even if you do get through the wall without destroying both our universes, what will you do? You're a Time Lord. You'll live forever, I'll grow old and you'll stay the same. Do you really want to spend the next seventy years with somebody who could be your mother?"

The Doctor smiled sadly. "You'll only look on the outside how I look on the inside. We'll be even."

His hologram flickered in and out as he moved about the Tardis, and then he disappeared.

"Doctor?" Rose asked the nothingness before her, beginning to panic.

There was silence for a moment, Jackie, Mickey and Pete standing behind her at the Jeep, watching anxiously. Jackie squirmed, beginning to make her way to her daughter, but Pete grabbed her by her arm. "Not yet," he whispered. Jackie looked at him with her big, sad puppy dog eyes, but Pete just shook his head to reaffirm what he had said.

Then suddenly, there was a white flash and the Doctor came shooting through, ramming into Rose and knocking her to the ground. Rose screamed, unsure of what was happening until the Doctor was laying on top of her, pushing her hair out of her face, panic on his. "Are you alright? Are you okay?"

She started to laugh, then, through her tears.

"Rose?" He was horrified with himself. Who goes flying through a portal in the universe and knocks down their pregnant girlfriend? The Doctor does, obviously.

"I'm fine," she reassured him, pushing herself up onto her elbow. When he didn't seem convinced, she said, "Really, I'm okay." She noticed the empty space around them, only the waves and the chilly Norwegian air making their noses cold. "But where's the Tardis?"

The Doctor's face fell, his hearts clearly broken. "We couldn't both come through."

"What?"

"The wall was too weak to support something as powerful as a Tardis, or it would have collapsed and we'd all have gone with it. I barely got through." His voice was shaking, trying not to cry. Rose knew what the Tardis meant to him.

"You need your Tardis."

The Doctor sniffed loudly, then said, "Nah, I don't need the Tardis."

"But it's your Tardis. You can't just leave it behind. You wouldn't be the Doctor without the Tardis."

He just smiled at her, both of them still lying on the ground, and he said, "I think I can be the Doctor without the Tardis. I was for a very long time before I stole it. But I don't remember how to be the Doctor without Rose."

Rose blinked away some tears now, but some dripped down onto her lips and into her smiling mouth anyway. There was a non-awkward silence for a while, as they stared at each other, both contemplating what to do next, simultaneously envisioning every day of the rest of their lives together, wondering how a domestic life would work. No Tardis. No sonic screwdriver. No more adventures. Just... baby diapers and bottles, and long nights with no sleep. This thought terrified the both of them.

Suddenly, Rose said, "You need to find a way to get the Tardis back."

With an aggressive nod of his head, he said, "Yeah, I really do."

And then he kissed her, and for the moment none of their other predicaments mattered: it was just the two of them, finally together, despite the universes between them.


End file.
